placed under the command of General Todor Kantardzhiev and became known simply as the Dobrich Forces. It was agreed that until the arrival of the VI Corps headquarters all Ottoman forces will be integrated in the Bulgarian units. On 10 September Silistra fell to the 1st Sofia Division and the Romanians retired towards lake Oltina. To support the advance of his left wing Field Marshal Mackensen created an entirely German brigade under the command of Colonel Bode consisting of his 45th Reserve Regiment (3 battalions), the 1/21 battalion and supported by 3 squadrons and 3 batteries. The pursuit of the Romanians and Russian was delayed due to logistical difficulties and the relatively large distance between the forces in Silistra and Dobrich. This gave them time to fortify their new positions on the lake Oltina – Cara-Omer – Mangalia line. Finally, two days later the Bulgarian Third Army approached the new positions and prepared to assault them. The line of contact between the equal in size opposing armies was roughly similar with the pre-1913 border between Bulgaria and Romania, that is why the two-day battle that occurred there is sometimes referred to as the Battle of the Old Frontier. The Bulgarians once again achieved victory but failed to encircle the Russian and Romanian divisions which again retreated to a new defensive line around Cobadin. On 16 September the Third Army reached Cobadin and prepared to assault the position as Field Marshal Mackensen considered his opponents weakened enough. The Romanian high command however had reinforced General Zayonchkovsky's Dobrogea Army with four divisions from Transylvania and placed him under General Averescu's new Army Group of the Southern Armies together with the Romanian Third Army. In reality 55 Bulgarian, 4 German and 3 Ottoman infantry battalions supported by 27 Bulgarian, 3 German squadrons were thrown against more than 70 Romanian and Russian battalions supported 32 Russian and 8 Romanian squadrons. After two days of heavy fighting the Bulgarians and Germans failed to break through and General Toshev decided to call off the attack as the exhaustion of the troops could make them vulnerable to counterattacks. The Bulgarian Third Army suffered around 6,539 casualties in the First Battle of Cobadin and withdrew to its starting positions. The Allied forces, emboldened by their success, attempted to counterattack but by 22 September their efforts had achieved no further gain and were in turn to dig in. For